Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. You Mean it Gets Harder??

My good friend Brittney sent these articles to a couple of us to see what we thought. Now how in the heck did she get in my head? The things in these two articles are exactly things that I've been thinking a lot about lately - and things I definitely needed to hear.

http://powerofmoms.com/2011/06/little-kids-little-problems/

http://powerofmoms.com/2011/06/do-children-make-us-happy/

The first article definitely spoke to me the most. Ever since Landon was born I have often found myself wishing away his childhood with dreams of "if only he could sleep, feed himself, tell me what he wants, understand me, understand reason, play nicely, not play in the cat's water bowl, be potty trained, not run out into the parking lot even when I tell him not to, have an extended discussion about the meaning of life with me, etc, then my life would be so much easier."

But some of those things have come, and life isn't easier. It's just different. Good stuff came with the changes, but hard stuff did, too. I remember wanting Landon to walk so badly because I hated having him crawl around on dirty floors when we were out and about.

So he started to walk. Then he started to RUN.

Now his favorite thing to do is shout "WUN AWAY!" and then run away from me at top speed. Who knew little pudgy toddler legs could move at the speed of light when they're doing something they know they're not supposed to?

So things are never going to necessarily get easier - but I've found that the good comes with the bad, often in surprising ways. For instance, I hate the heart-stopping vision of my son running into oncoming traffic, but I am actually glad that he can walk and run around. He seems so much happier than when he was just crawling and able to get a lot more energy out. And more energy expended = better sleeping. The golden ticket.

So whenever those thoughts of "if only he could (insert wishful thinking here)" pop into my head I need to remember that every action (usually) has an opposite and equal reaction. Which means that, even though he's a lot more vocal on his opinions now, he can also choose to voice his little opinion that "mama, I yuv you." And that's something I should never wish away.